For Blue Skies
by viper209n
Summary: AU. An unexpected visitor to the Cohen house receives unexpected news.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N : **I know I said I would work on something old but this sprung into my mind. It's only two chapters so I went ahead and completed it. Enjoy!

Soundtrack_ : For Blue Skies _by Strays Don't Sleep_/ Let It Go _by Blue October

Both songs work for both POVs.

_It's been a long year  
Since we last spoke  
How's your halo?_

Just between you and I  
You and me and the satellites  
I never believed you  
I only wanted to

Before all of this  
What did I miss?

"_For Blue Skies" _by Strays Don't Sleep

_---_

Sandy opened the front door of the spacious Newport mansion and was, well, incredibly surprised. To begin with, he thought his mind was playing tricks with him, just as it had for the past 12 months. Through his blurry eyes, it looked like Carter Buckley was standing on the front porch. The man who left Newport a year ago, the man Sandy had accused his wife of cheating with.

"Hi, Sandy," Carter said politely. He noticed that Sandy did not look like he had when Carter had left. His face looked tired, his eyes void of… something Carter couldn't place.

There was a prolonged moment of awkward silence. Carter had planned out his words for Sandy, Kirsten, and anyone else who crossed his path on the journey. Yet, when he found himself finally here, all of his prepared lines seemed all wrong.

"I suppose you're here to see Kirsten," Sandy broke their silence. His voice was rough, raw. Without waiting for an answer, Sandy walked back into the house and out of view. Carter stood on the porch, waiting with his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans. Now, with clear vision of the living room, he noticed boxes scattered around and bare walls. Suddenly, Sandy returned. He shoved a paper at Carter with an address scrawled on it.

"This is where she is." Carter's brows scrunched together as he read the scrap of paper. He looked back at Sandy, nodded before turning to walk toward his car. Sandy closed the door.

The name of the street, Foster, sounded familiar and Carter felt he could find it although he had never been. His brain raced with possibilities.

They must have finally split. His heart soured with the thought. He hadn't expected this when he scheduled the trip, honest. But he certainly wouldn't lie and say he was disappointed.

Or maybe they're moving and she's out shopping at this address. But why would Sandy look the way he did? He looked like he'd been hit by a semi truck. Carter knew that losing Kirsten would cause anyone to look that way.

His heartbeat picked up again as he saw the street sign, Foster. He turned right onto the road. He was looking for the number, 2300, and he was starting at 1400. He sighed as he caught sight of the speed limit. Only 40 miles per hour.

Large houses and grand apartments passed the car's windows. He checked off the numbers as he made his way. Soon, he was to 1800, which was the number of flips his stomach seemed to be doing.

He furrowed his forehead at the 1900 block when the houses became farther and farther apart. When he reached 2020, there was nothing beside or ahead of him; the only sign of life was in the rear view mirror. Tall mountainous rocks to his right and the Pacific Ocean to his left made for a gorgeous view but all Carter could see was a dead end.

Sandy had lied to him. The son of a bitch. He'd probably grabbed Kirsten as soon as Carter's car had pulled away. Probably lied to her and told her they had to leave for a romantic getaway in the Tropics. His stomach lurked at the thought. He was going to turn around but the speed limit had sprung up to 55 and he punched the gas, needing to hear and feel the engine roar angrily.

He rounded a curve at 60, much faster than was safe. He was surprised to see an opening in the rocks several yards ahead of him. It resembled a driveway. His car was suddenly doing 65.

As soon as he could, Carter turned to wheel and steered the car up the incline. He was startled to find what waited for him at the top.

Grave stones freckled the earth in front of him. He must have made it to 2500 Foster Street. He had missed 2300. A few headstones into the lot, a gardener was sitting on his lawnmower, cooling off with a bottle of water.

An idea leapt into Carter's mind. Newport was relatively small and even if it was huge, the Nichols were practically royalty. Surely everyone knew where Kirsten Cohen was now living after her inevitable divorce from Sandy.

Carter exited his car and approached the man.

"Hello." Carter started. "I'm looking for this address." He held the paper out to the man. "I must have passed it on the wa…"

"Who're you looking for?"

"Kirsten Cohen, or maybe Nichol, I'm not sure."

"Three rows up, first one on the right." The gardener pointed deeper among the stones.

Carter was breathless. This was some kind of mistake.

"No, no. Kirsten. Cohen." He annunciated carefully. This man should wear earplugs before his hearing was gone forever.

The man responded by pointing at the same plot and glaring at Carter.

A huge lump jumped in Carter's throat as his legs moved numbly.

Three rows up. First one on the right.

The engraved letters acted as a punch in the face.

Kirsten Nichol Cohen  
1967 - 2005  
Beloved wife, mother, daughter, and friend.

Carter couldn't breathe.

Inspired by this quote from Ansy Pansy aka Panz's _Fairytale of New York :_

_His fingers tightened over hers imaging alternative outcomes. He wondered if the worst had happened whether he would have found out. Would anyone have thought to let him know? Unlikely. And he would never have known, he'd have been in NYC, thinking of her, missing her, never knowing._


	2. Chapter 2

_I'm under that night  
I'm under those same stars  
We're in a red car  
You asleep at my side  
Going in and out of the headlights_

Could I have saved you?  
Would that've betrayed you?

"For Blue Skies" by Strays Don't Sleep

---

Carter stared at the cold marble. Time passed but he didn't notice.

He didn't even hear the footsteps approaching.

"I'm sorry." A voice spoke from behind him. Carter didn't bother turning around, simply kept his attention on the engraving. "I shouldn't have done that. I should have just told you." He paused, looking from his wife's headstone to his mother-in-law's.

"How did this happen? How _could_ this happen?!" The accusation was clear in his tone. He was really asking 'How could _you_ let this happen?'

Sandy tried to ignore Carter's unspoken question. He swallowed his anger and tried to speak calmly. "She was…" Sandy cleared his throat. "Intoxicated and she ran a red light. A semi truck smashed into her car."

Carter swallowed the rising lump in his throat. "Was it… did she…" He couldn't finish the question.

Despite months and months of repressing the memory, the sights, sounds, and feelings of that night replayed themselves. Sandy heard the horns honk, the tires screech, the metal bend, the glass break. He heard her initial scream and, immediately after, his name, repeatedly shrieked as the pain caused her to forget that he was still on the phone.

His jaw clenched as he strained to keep from yelling out her name in the present as he did that night.

"It was instant." He lied. "She didn't feel anything." Carter scoffed._ How could anyone truly know if she felt the pain of dying? _"I was on the phone with her. I know."

Carter turned and looked at Sandy, a look of horror on his face.

"What?" Sandy asked skeptically.

"I'm… I'm sorry. That had to be horrible. Hearing it, I mean."

Sandy was shocked (and not that he would admit it but so was Carter) at the sincerity in the other man's voice. He actually believed what Carter had said, that he was really sorry. Sandy swallowed hard again.

"Wasn't much to hear after the initial hit," Sandy refused to look at Carter, afraid the pain in his eyes was visible. He hadn't come here to continually lie to this man but the thought of sharing something so intimate as Kirsten's last seconds with anyone disgusted Sandy.

Carter looked back at the grave, the truth finally sinking in. Sandy looked at him again.

"But as I was saying before, I shouldn't have been such a jerk. Would you like to go somewhere? Talk?" When Carter remained silent, Sandy began to feel awkward. "I mean, you came here for some reason, right?"

Carter took a deep breath before turning around. "Where to?" He asked without looking at Sandy.

Sandy gave him directions to a bar a few miles away. A place no Newpsies would be caught dead in. The bar was dimly lit and the two men sat at the first booth available.

Carter asked for a glass of whiskey, Sandy got a beer, and three shots of vodka a piece. For Kirsten, they agreed.

"So," Sandy started after throwing back the first shot. "You came back?"

"So it seems," Carter answered, looking into his empty glass.

"For any particular reason?"

"Doesn't matter now."

Neither man spoke for a few minutes. Finally Sandy cleared his throat.

"Be honest. Did you come back to steal her?"

"She was your property?"

Sandy laughed. "Of course not. When Kirsten had her mind made up, not much could change that, especially not me. She could have chosen you if she wanted to. She didn't."

"Maybe she didn't know she had a choice."

"Yeah," Sandy held up his left hand. "Maybe the ring _I _gave her stopped her."

"Could you have really let her go? If she wanted someone else, not just me?"

Sandy snorted. "Don't think I wouldn't fight like hell against it and try to win her love back. But yes. If she truly would be happier and _safe_…" There was a lot of emphasis on that last word. "Elsewhere… Yeah, I could have let her go." Sandy needed Carter to understand that Kirsten really did have a choice. He needed to know that she hadn't picked him even though she could have.

After a few minutes, Carter smirked smugly. "You know, she wasn't wearing _your_ ring the night we met. She had me thinking she was a single woman. An _interested_ single woman." Carter didn't care how cruel his lies might be. Sandy deserved to feel as much pain as he had felt when he lived in Newport. It hurt to want a woman who wanted someone else.

"Maybe she was interested. But whose ring did she put back on?"

Carter took his next shot; the alcohol warming his stomach and giving him more courage. "While we're being honest," he began. "You don't deserve to have her wear your ring."

Sandy snorted and raised his shot glass to Carter. "You're right about that, friend." He drank.

"She's such an amazing woman." Carter looked at his last shot of vodka. "Was an amazing woman," he muttered.

"Past tense is a bitch," Sandy murmured before gulping down the last of his shots. Carter was not listening. He concentrated his eyes on the glasses in front of him, in his own world. He thought to the year before and how sad Kirsten was. He could tell most of her smiles weren't complete and her laughs weren't genuine the majority of the time. So many times he had walked in to her playing with those stupid rings on her left hand with the saddest expression he had ever seen.

"I could have loved her so much better than you." Carter didn't realize he was speaking out loud until Sandy slammed his glass on the table. Carter looked up from his thoughts and remembered where he was and who he was with. Sandy seemed to be concentrating on something very intensely but it was impossible for Carter to tell exactly what that was. He prepared himself for a fight.

Sandy finally spoke. "I've never doubted that you have feelings for Kirsten. Believe me, you aren't the first man to cry 'love' when you see her. But you don't know the first thing about loving her. You have no idea.

"I don't care if you think she let you in. I don't care that you think you've seen her vulnerable. You've never seen her walk down the aisle toward you except in your dreams. You've never had her squeeze your hand while she gives birth to your child. You've never seen her cry after you make love to her." At this point, Sandy had given up being polite and now just wanted to hurt this man.

"Maybe I have," Carter challenged. "How would you ever know?"

Sandy grinned at the man across from him. "Because. You kissed and that was all." Before Carter could speak, Sandy continued. "If you had ever slept with her… I'd be able to see it on your face. It'd be an experience that you wouldn't be able to hide. It'd be the best night of your life and you wouldn't be able to hide it. Trust me." Sandy kept staring at him.

"You're such a bastard." Carter drank his last shot. "And not just here and now but back then to the 'best night of your life'. If she was yours, then why weren't you more appreciative of her, huh? Why'd you leave her over and over again? Maybe _Rebecca_ was the best night of _your_ life."

Sandy was the one looking away now. "Rebecca."

_She saw him through a window at his office building by the beach. She had heard about Kirsten's death and came back. She knew it only looked like she was here to snatch up Sandy (of course if it led to that, who would she be to say no?) but honestly she just wanted to comfort him if she could. As she approached the door, she noticed the state of the room. Boxes that he still hadn't unpacked when she left were thrown across the room. His surfboard table was broken in two._

_Her eyes finally came to rest on him. He sat with his elbows propped on the desk and his head in his hands. An almost empty bottle of scotch sat beside him. She eased the already cracked door open just enough for her to enter. A few steps into the room and she finally spoke. _

"_Sandy," she said softly._

_Slowly, he began to lift his head. His hair was a complete mess from his fingers. His eyelids were swollen and his pupils dilated. He was in between stubble and a light beard. Dark circles were under his blood shot eyes. She had never seen him like this. She had imagined this was what he looked like when she left. She realized now that she had been wrong. He'd never looked like this before. He'd never been so… hopeless._

"_You," he stated simply. His mouth was set with disgust. Rebecca hadn't expected a reception like this although she now realized that she should have._

"_I know you probably hate me." The words flowed easier than she anticipated. For a few minutes, neither of them said a word. He just stared at her._

_Finally he looked down at his hands as his fingers twisted his wedding band. "I don't hate you."_

_At those words, relief washed through her body._

"_As much… as I hate myself." He finished before looking back up at her. His eyes were full of passion and hatred. "But don't get me wrong," he growled. "I do hate you."_

_She gasped as her hand flew toward her heart._

"_Why did you have to come back?" His voice broke as he spoke. "I'm to blame for some things but if you had never come back, she wouldn't be dead." Tears swelled in his eyes. "Get out. I don't ever want to see you again."_

_She stood still, shocked and unable to move._

"_GET OUT!" He screamed, shaking. Angrily, he grabbed the neck of the bottle beside him. "Don't make me do something I won't regret." He started drinking as he swiveled the chair around to face the wall._

_His tears finally fell down his face. He didn't even hear the slamming door as Rebecca sprinted away, not glancing back once._

They drank silently before Carter spoke again.

"So did you two make up in the month between my departure and her death?"

"That's none of your business," Sandy growled. This question turned his stomach more than anything else had. Because the answer was no. Kirsten died angry and hurt. She died thinking that he didn't love her, that he loved Rebecca more. She thought she wasn't good enough. Her phone call that night only left Sandy with questions and nightmares. She had merely spoken his name before that truck hit her. There had been no closure, no 'I love you', no last kiss. There hadn't been time for any of that. Knowing that her kiss with Carter had been the last kiss of her life killed Sandy daily.

Carter chuckled. "I'll take that as a 'no.'" He paused. "You ever wonder if they are related? My departure and her death?"

He watched Sandy cringe, answering Carter's question. "I didn't bring you here to kick your ass but I will. I should. For you even thinking about touching her."

Carter ignored the interruption and persisted. "Maybe if I'd never left she'd still be here. Maybe you should have made her go with me."

Sandy interrupted before Carter could continue his torture. "Yeah, so you two could drink all day and get so hammered that she drives drunk and kills mother and a child! Or maybe you drive drunk with her in the car, you crash the car, and she's the one left for dead! Or my favorite scenario: you constantly pump alcohol into her tiny body and absolutely trash her liver. When she needs the liver transplant, not only can she not accept yours because of all the shit you've put in it, but you don't even know her blood type, do you?!"

"See! You wouldn't have let her go! You think she needs a babysitter instead of a husband!"

"She needs to be safe!"

"Oh, what a hell of a job you did!"

"Her death. Is not. My fault," Sandy choked. He still couldn't convince himself of that, much less convince Carter.

"She wanted me," Carter said to himself. "She wanted me at Featherbrook but I respected her marriage. I should have just kissed her…"

"You'd better be glad you didn't take the initiative to kiss her. If you had laid just one unwanted hand on her, I would have killed you," Sandy said firmly, interrupting Carter's delusions. He began to chuckle. "Respected her marriage? Please! You didn't try anything because you wanted to know that she really wanted you. You knew that if she slept with you, it was out of revenge. You had to know that sex with her meant punishing me. And nothing more."

Carter clenched his jaw and glared at Sandy, afraid to say anything.

"You don't get it, do you?" His throat burned as he repeated some of Kirsten's last words to him. "I knew she was attracted to you. I knew she wanted to hurt me. So I put the ball in her court. She needed to make the decision. Pick between me and… something else."

"You want me to believe that you were in control the entire time?" Carter scoffed.

"Of course not." Sandy was trying to keep his temper in control. "She had the control. And if she decided to be with you, she would have broken my heart. Trusting her with that decision was the hardest thing I've ever done but I had made a lot of mistakes. I had put her through hell and ruined her trust in me. So I showed her that I trusted her.

"But I love Kirsten. Completely. With all that I am," Sandy stated firmly. However, he then cast down his eyes and as he began to speak again, his voice wavered. "But that does remind me." He paused. This next statement was going to be hard to say. "Thank you."

Carter looked up at him, confused.

"It kills me to know that, during her last months, Kirsten was hurt and upset with me. But I asked Julie and she said that she had seen you make Kirsten smile and laugh often during that time." Sandy cleared his throat and continued to study his hands. "She told me Kirsten said that you made her feel less alone. So thank you… for doing my job when I… didn't."

Carter swallowed the lump in his throat as Julie's words sank in. Finally, he spoke. "My pleasure," he murmured.

An odd silence settled over them before Sandy began to chuckle.

"What?" Carter asked.

"It's just… to think of us ever being friends. Like Kirsten had suggested." Carter smirked amused. "And she was probably right. I might have been friends with you if you hadn't been trying to get your hands on my wife."

"And I might have been your friend if the girl I wanted wasn't in love with you."

Sandy smiled. It was nice to know that Carter did know he hadn't truly stood much of a chance with Kirsten.

They were quiet again.

"I couldn't help noticing all the boxes. You moving?"

Sandy couldn't see the harm in telling him. "Back to Berkeley. Without Kirsten, there's nothing for my sons and me in this town." He wouldn't mention this but Carter had caught Sandy at a good time. Until a few months prior, Sandy couldn't even make himself sleep or eat. He was failing as a father, letting Kirsten down even after she was gone.

"But she's buried here."

"True. But, corny as it sounds, she's wherever we take her. She's always with us. With you too probably." Sandy chuckled. "It's not easy to forget her, is it? She's one of those people who stays with you, changes your life forever." Once again, he was talking to himself. "God, I miss her." He took one last drink from his beer before glancing at his watch. "Well, Carter, I'd better go. The boys are probably on their way home now."

Sandy stood from the booth, throwing a few dollars on the table.

"Wait," Carter said urgently, getting to his feet. He looked down at his shoes before clearing his throat and asking, "How do you, well not you personally but anyone, keep going without her?"

"I don't have any advice for you. But what keeps me going?" Sandy thought for a moment. "Her children."

He stuck his hand out to the other man and started to make a joke. "I'd say it was nice to see you but… No, it was kind of nice to see you and… talk about her." Carter took his hand and shook it. "Thanks again for being her friend."

"Thank you… for being preoccupied so I could be." He smirked, letting Sandy know that he didn't mean anything by it.

"Have a good life, Carter."

"You too, Sandy."

"_Fat chance_." Both men thought sarcastically.

**_A/N: _**_Well, I hope everyone liked it. It was very random but I enjoyed writing it. I am working on 'She Will Be Loved' at the moment. :)_


End file.
